


Really Gone

by gingerbreadlove



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Angst, Angst and Tragedy, F/M, Heavy Angst, John Green Type Angst, Leo Fitz Angst
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-10
Updated: 2018-02-26
Packaged: 2019-03-16 05:23:20
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,541
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13629507
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gingerbreadlove/pseuds/gingerbreadlove
Summary: In which the Doctor does shoot Jemma Simmons in the Framework, and Fitz wakes up to that reality and the weight of “his” actions.





	1. Part 1: Shot

**Author's Note:**

> This chapter is pretty much the Doctor's thoughts through his last scene in the Framework. Of course, with the twist that sets up the rest of this fic please don't hate me.

“Fitz…” Jemma Simmons walks toward him as he points a gun at her.

“You don’t get to say my name…not after everything you’ve done.” He growls, gaze not letting this girl have an inch. Not after what she had done to his father.

She stops in her tracks and raises her hands gently, eyes begging for his understanding. “It wasn’t supposed to be like this.” She moves toward him again, desperately. “Aida--she took you from me, and I came here to rescue you.”

“So you  _ kill my father _ ?” His spits the question out. The woman looks at the floor, pursing her lips, tears in her eyes. Is this all an act to her? She kills his father then begs for his forgiveness. “Right after he tells me that he loves me, you murder him in cold blood…” He takes a moment, hearing the scene play again in his mind. Hearing the gunshot and the dead line of the phone. “...as I listen.”

Jemma’s hands are trembling and she brings them close to her chest, using them for emphasis as she speaks, voice wobbly with tears. “I am  _ so _ sorry.” She shakes her head, then looks him in the face, hands still raised. “It was an accident.”

An accident? An  _ accident _ ? The body had been examined. This was  _ not _ an accident. “Nothing that you’ve done has been an accident!” He cuts in, voice boiling with barely contained rage, the gun shaking in his palm. “You want to destroy this world! You want to destroy me! You want to destroy the woman that I love.” He thinks of Ophelia, lying in bed. She had nearly died. He had nearly lost her as well. His head is tilted with anguish.

“That woman,” Jemma cries, raising her voice with emotion, “is lying to you!” She shakes her head, tears streaming down her face. “None of this is real! She’s not real! Aida’s just a--a robot you and Radcliffe created!”

The Doctor cuts her off again. “Her name is Ophelia.” He insists, voice level but anywhere from calm. Anger--deep-rooted  _ anger-- _ boils within him.

“ _ It’s  _ name is Aida--” she presses firmly, hands still waving in small, unconscious motions for emphasis. “And stop making excuses for it!” Her voice grows furiously desperate. “Radcliffe and Daisy  _ told _ you the truth!” She was pleading. Her voice faded to a whisper, softened by sobs. “Please...Fitz, you have to wake up.” She begged him, voice quivering.

He dips the gun in a slight motion. “Get on your knees.” He orders, eyes lacking any empathy.

She lets out a teary scoff. “No.”

Without flinching, Leopold shoots her in the knee, gunshot ringing through the concrete space. She thought she had authority over him, thought she meant something to him. She was wrong.

Jemma chokes on a scream, the world swimming before her. She groans, slowly collapsing to a sit, holding her sticky leg as excruciating pain pulses endlessly up it. 

“Please…” She begs, voice catching. “You don’t have to do this.” She looks up at him, eyes pleading through the darkness. “I love you.” 

He stares back, unphased. This girl had nearly murdered the two people he cared about. “And you mean nothing to me.” The Doctor moves toward her and she grimaces, torn to hear those words come from his mouth. He presses the gun into her scalp. “I want to hear you say it.” He states sharply. “‘ _ I. am. nothing. to. you. _ ’.” 

She blinks back, slowly and tearily, looking up at him.

“Say it!” His voice is strong and commanding, balancing precariously on the edge of rage. 

She closes her eyes, letting tears leak out of her eyes.

“Say  _ it _ !” He demands, digging the gun further into her head. There is no more patience. Fire sears through his fingertips, and his hand tightens around the trigger.

The moment slows, and a gunshot echoes through the room in a wave. Or rather, two gunshots at once, blending together in a horrifying throng. 

The Doctor raises his chin as Jemma Simmons falls limply to the floor.


	2. Part 2: Backfire

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Radcliffe regrets all that he created and tells Fitz not to blame himself. This is a very short chapter, and the last of the "intro", so I'll post another part with it.

Leopold whipped his head around to find Holden Radcliffe beside him, and before he knew it, his gun was slid from his grip and Radcliffe had knocked him across the face with the butt of his pistol. A searing pain spread through his skull as he was taken by the collar at gunpoint. 

Regret washed over Radcliffe’s face, and he grimaced, glancing down at Jemma’s lifeless form, then back to the Doctor.

“Oh Fitz, what have I done?” The man breathed, life sucked from his voice, as he dragged Leopold to the next room, where others from the SHIELD rebel alliance were waiting around the portal. “This was never my intention.” He shook his head solemnly, pausing at the ledge. 

He nodded across the wide area at Skye, a former Hydra agent--an Inhuman. In a blink, she had opened the portal, and Radcliffe was hissing words into the Doctor’s ear. 

“Just...don’t blame yourself. It was all my fault. I’m so sorry Fitz.” 

And then wind was rushing around him as he fell through the tear in the coding. 


	3. Part 3: Paralysis

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fitz wakes up to reality. He is immediately overwhelmed at the fact that Jemma is gone, and by all that "he" did in the Framework. 
> 
> From now on, chapter titles will be based off of stages of grief...ouch...

Fitz broke the surface of the portal--or rather, opened his eyes back to reality. His legs went soft under him and he nearly collapsed under the weight of the Framework. 

He had--he had done all those... _ things _ in that world. He had--

Jemma.

The gunshot went off in his mind again.

Jemma.

She was--

He slid out of the machine’s monitors, body limp. 

The world tilted and spun as his mind sorted through both lives--the last moment echoing through his mind with a skull-cracking force.

His face was slack and his wide eyes were already burning with tears as he stumbled forward, breathing heavily. 

No.

No.

No.

This couldn't be real. She couldn't be--she couldn't  _ actually _ be--

His heart felt like it was being torn in half and pulled up through his throat in one giant, sickening lump.

_ He _ had pulled that trigger. 

Because of  _ him _ , Mace was dead. Because of  _ him _ , Agnes was dead. Because of  _ him _ , Jemma was--

He couldn’t bring himself to think it.

His skin was cold and damp with fear, and though he didn't register the chill, he trembled. 

He hardly processed Coulson’s form rushing to steady him as he lurched forward, and he backed away, grabbing onto a counter to keep from falling over as his vision swam darkly. 

“It’s okay.” Coulson told him, voice steady and firm as he took Fitz’s shuddering wrist and placed his hand on Fitz’s shoulder. The torn scientist looked at him with wide, red eyes of disbelief, still trying to back away. “We’re back. Everybody’s safe.”

“No--Simmons.” Was all Fitz could muster in reply, voice weak and shaking. His throat was tight and dry, burning with emotion and tears. His eyes were unsteady, gaze unfocused and jumpy. 

He couldn’t bring himself to explain further. He couldn't bring himself to do anything. Couldn't make his brain focus on anything--anything besides the echoing gunshot that rang in his ears. 

“Don’t blame yourself,” Coulson held Fitz in place, trying to get through to the trembling man before him. “The Framework messed with all of our heads. That wasn’t you in there.” His voice was calm and reassuring, but Fitz was barely making out Coulson’s words over the roaring hurricane inside his mind.

“N-no, no--I-I-I killed--” Fitz felt his throat tighten with emotion, and he bent over, unable to breathe--or unwilling to.

“They weren’t real.” Coulson’s voice was kind and firm, but he was wrong. He was wrong and Fitz knew it. 

He had killed them; Agnes, and Mace, and--J--no. NO. He couldn’t--

His panicked breaths caught in his throat as a figure clothed in white floated into the room. 

“Leopold!” The woman chuckled, spreading her arms to show off her real-ness.

Suddenly his mind was yanked back to his work in the other world. He had invented a machine to build a human body for--

“Ophelia...?” His voice was tight as he spoke the name that only the Doctor had used before. She was here now--no longer an android. She was real. 


	4. Part 4: Confusion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ophelia shows up and takes him to the beach. He’s still struggling with sorting through two lives and what happened to Jemma, but is trying to hold it together for the current situation.  
> I will constantly apologize for emotional damage caused by this fic.

Fitz looked up in shock at the woman. Flashes of his work as the Doctor gripped his fragile mind, pulling the blanket off of the memories he was already trying to sweep under the rug. Torturing Inhumans. Standing beside his father’s image. His work creating a machine to build a human body for the woman he loved. 

He stared back as other memories--parallel memories--crashed together like tidal waves. Meeting Jemma the at the Academy...meeting Ophelia the same way. Endless experiences--the same, but different. Taking place in different worlds. One real, one not. But at this point, with everything collapsing around him, telling one from another was like finding up from down after being flung around by an undercurrent. He was drowning, but which way was to the surface? Which way was up? 

“Leopold…” Ophelia spoke his first name, chuckling softly with the wonder of bubbling emotion.

He stared back at the woman before him, dazed. 

“I am so happy to see you.” She articulated her words precisely and smiled broadly, gazing back at him. 

He studied her in an absent, awed way. What had he created? Or rather: who? He had made Ophelia into a person, given her life. Had that been him? The hurricane of memories tore through his mind. The Doctor may not have been him, but the memories were his burden. They were part of him now. 

Ophelia’s breath hitched, face changing shape. “This is what happiness feels like.” She wondered aloud, distant from the world that Fitz was living inside.

Mindlessly--almost as if she had a magnetic force pulling him to her--he crossed the room, steps unsure. 

“Finally,” Her voice was thrilled and growing tighter with emotion, “you can touch the real me.” Her breathing sped up, and she grabbed his hand, pressing it to her chest in a desperate motion. 

Fitz’s face remained unmoving, emotionless, yet his mind was in turmoil, sifting through two lives of memories, losing a grip on the truth of reality. One thing was very real, though. Jemma...

“Feel my heart beating. Touch my skin.” 

His face was slack, searching eyes his only voluntary movement. 

“We can make this world whatever we want.” Ophelia’s words were whispered, and suddenly Fitz was snapped into the realization that May had a gun aimed at them. All in one moment, Ophelia had enveloped him in her arms, and a dizzying flash pulled them out of the room.

\--

Fitz opened his eyes and the scene had changed completely. Warm sand, rushing tides, and an open, clear sky surrounded him. In any other situation the location would have been peaceful-- romantic even--but in Fitz’s current state of despondency, it was overwhelming. 

He swayed on his feet, head spinning. The crashing water roared in his mind, agitating the memories he was trying to process, and throwing them into the whirlwind, creating a storm of confusion, fear, love, manipulation, pain, guilt, grief, anger...his legs felt weak beneath the weight of it all, and he came close to tripping backward as the sand held his feet in place. With everything happening within him, there seemed to be no room for Fitz himself, and he got the dazed feeling of being separated from his own mind. His stomach turned in agonizing knots and he bent over, hands gripping firmly to his knees. 

“I think I’m gonna throw up.” He stated weakly, blindly staring at the sand, which appeared to crawl underfoot. Everything was moving--or seemed like it was. Black, static dots edged his vision and he fell forward onto all fours, arms wobbling weakly as they pushed against the thick sand, before collapsing, landing his elbows in the dampness. His sand-coated palms ran desperately through his mussed curls. This...this...all of this. It was too much. What was real? What wasn’t? 

He trembled, looking wide-eyed into the sand, vision focusing in and out as the foamy edge of the tide wisped around his firmly planted elbows. His jaw hung open and he breathed out slowly, breath and body shaking. 

“...two lives worth of memories…” A faraway voice sounded in his cotton-filled ears, and slowly, jerkily, he looked up at the woman, realizing she was expecting a response, but unable to form words. A quick exhale flew from his lips and he sat back onto his knees. 

“W-w-what...what did I do?” He asked, more rhetorically than as an actual question.

“You did what you had to do in order to survive the Framework.” Came her calculated reply, barely heard over Fitz’s loud thoughts. He was breathing heavily, distant gaze flicking over the face before him, trying to focus. Trying to make sense of it all. “But it was a simulation--an illusion,” She was kneeling at his level, and her hand brushed his cheek, making his breath choke in his throat as he froze, “created by Radcliffe.”

Trembling, he slid back in the sand, causing her hand to fall from his cheek. His stomach was in his throat now, and he felt even more-so than before that he would empty its contents into the sand within the minute.

“Not...not everything was an ill-lu-lusion.” He could feel the weight of the gun in his hands, feel himself issuing the kill order, feel the weight of another gun…

“Like me. I was there beside you the whole time. That was real.”

He looked back at her, horrified and appalled.  _ Not _ what he had meant. The flow of memories spun recklessly through his mind, tossing everything inside his head around once more. She had been there the whole time, encouraging him, forcing him to do everything. 

“You--You were there the whole time.” He echoed her, looking up with burning eyes. “You ma-manipulated me...made me do...do all those things...Why did...How...What…” He brought a palm to the side of his forehead, pressing hard as if that could hold his mind together.

“I had to. It was in my programming. I was programmed to save lives.” She responded, tilting her head just slightly. 

Fitz shook his head, moving back into a seated position, legs curled underneath himself. “Whose life were you…sa...who were you protecting?” He asked, eyebrows drawn tightly together. 

“My own.” She laughed softly. “I was saving my own life. Or giving myself one.” She smiled, still in wonder of life, being alive, feeling. She turned back to him with concern at his still distraught face. “Maybe it would be easier if we went elsewhere.” She said quickly to herself, then wrapped her arms around him, and the world became a static ocean of color. 

Fitz was on his feel again as they appeared in the living room of a house that was a near replica of the one they'd had in the Framework and Fitz swayed dazedly on his feet, still feeling like he would throw up at any moment. This--none of this was good. This was bad. He was bad. This was bad.


End file.
